Monthly web report: 127 million page views for July

The performance of latimes.com, and recent developments there, are covered in this memo to staff from Executive Editor for Interactive Meredith Artley:

Colleagues: We can’t say the summers are slow anymore. Latimes.com set an all-time record of 127 million page views for July, cruising past the previous record of 120 million set in May. That’s 66% growth from this time last year. More than 19 million unique users visited in July, another all-timer.

We were on track to break that May record by a few million page views, and then the earthquake happened, pushing us even further ahead.

You’ll see more traffic driving elements in the most-viewed lists below. But there are other reasons for the growth. We’re using technology and the Web at large to spread our journalism far and wide. Latimes.com keeps getting better at SEO (search engine optimization), which means our stories are ranking higher in Google and other search engines. We are also performing better on sites like Digg.com. All that adds up to more exposure and more readership than ever before.

Other highlights of the month included the launch of Hero Complex, the new sci-fi and beyond blog featuring Geoff Boucher and other print and Web contributors. Hero Complex was the home for our outstanding Comic-Con coverage, with great live blogging, creative video and exclusive interviews. Also, Eric Ulken and the “cool kids” team took a break from their hard news database work and launched a fun database of L.A. dog names and breeds. Some great work went into the “Big Burn” fire series. And to top it off, latimes.com is a finalist in four categories for the Online Journalism Awards:

• Breaking News – October Wildfires
• Multimedia – Burnover
• Outstanding Use of Digital Technologies -- California War Dead
• Topical Reporting -- Homicide Report

Coming up: The Olympics blog is about to go full steam ahead with the opening ceremonies this Friday. Folks are also preparing for the conventions later this month.

Most-viewed articles for July:

1. Jackson's Obama comments almost went unnoticed (Matea Gold)
2. 5.4 quake rocks L.A. area (Joel Rubin, David Pierson and Mitchell Landsberg)
3. IndyMac Bank seized by federal regulators (Kathy M. Kristof and Andrea Chang)
4. McCain's broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship (Richard A. Serrano and Ralph Vartabedian)
5. For Republicans, the Senate outlook is bad (Janet Hook)
6. Concerned about gang signs, NFL reviews tapes (Sam Farmer)
7. Banks hit by fallout from the crisis at IndyMac (E. Scott Reckard and Andrea Chang)
8. Interrogation, then revenge (Joel Rubin and Ari B. Bloomekatz)
9. Los Angeles condo sells for $2,848 (per square foot) (Roger Vincent)
10. In study, evidence of liberal-bias bias (James Rainey)

Top 20 blogs for July follow. Blog traffic broke an all-time record this month of more than 12 million page views. Tony Pierce notes that July 2007 blog page views were 2.2 million page views. Incredible growth.

1. Top of the Ticket -- 1,800,770 PVs
2. The Dish Rag -- 1,666,702
3. L.A. Land -- 1,205,609
4. Gold Derby -- 655,369
5. Show Tracker -- 516,324
6. Lakers         
7. Countdown to Crawford (more than 500K in its first full month)
8. Hero Complex (launched July 16)      
9. Technology 
10. Web Scout
11. The Big Picture      
12. Booster Shots         
13. The Daily Travel & Deal Blog    
14. Opinion L.A.         
15. The Homicide Report       
16. L.A. Now   
17. Ticket to Beijing (Olympics)         
18. Money & Co         
19. Entertainment News & Buzz         
20. L.A. Unleashed      

Your Scene, our user-generated photo service, generated 6.6 million page views in July. Bravo to Lindsay Barnett, Your Scene producer extraordinaire.

Top photo galleries:

1. Dancing badly with the stars (Elizabeth Snead)
2. 10 magazine covers that shook the world
3. A brief history of the Joker (Patrick Day)
4. Deaths that shocked us
5. Celebrity shots
6. Las Vegas party pools (The Guide)
7. Gap fire
8. 5.4 quake rocks Los Angeles area
9. Foreclosed and for sale: Bank-owned listings from Glendale to Redondo Beach
10. A marriage in pictures: Madonna and Guy (Elizabeth Snead)

Top video:

1. King-Harbor Hospital lobby death - 21,056 streams - LAT
2. Security camera captures California earthquake -­ 19,774 streams - ­LAT ­(footage courtesy of Incycle in San Dimas, CA )
3. Time-lapse journey through Comic-Con - 16,332 streams -­ LAT
4. Jackson apologizes for remark - 15,603 streams - AP
5. Woman murdered in Century City - 12,410 streams - LAT
6. Kenneth Turan reviews ‘The Dark Knight’ - 11,871 streams - LAT
7. Inside Qantas flight - 2731433 - 11,107 streams - AP
8. Governor: Californians need to prepare for anything - 10,476 streams - KTLA
9. Customers grow furious outside Encino IndyMac branch - 10,091 streams - KTLA
10. Quake recap: LAX flooding, viewer experience, CalTech maps - 9,408 streams - KTLA

That’s it. Questions, concerns, ideas for an even brighter future? Send ’em along.

Meredith Artley

Executive Editor, LATimes.com

Links for the Mac geeks:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/

http://www.latimes.com/dogs

http://www.latimes.com/fire

http://journalist.org/news/archives/001176.php

http://www.latimes.com/olympics

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/breakingnews/

http://www.latimes.com/burnover

http://www.latimes.com/wardead

http://www.latimes.com/homicidereport

Comments

[Internet Strategy India]

First of all, great numbers. Just goes to show the kind of reach the internet has and the future of accessing information.

[les at myradicalblogs]

SEO and social media working together as it should be. It is great to see print media admitting that SEO can and does work.

les

[Carrie]

I am glad to hear that SEO has worked so well for the LA Times. I think the content available from the LA Times is of great quality and between search, social bookmarking, blogs and user generated content, the newspaper is slowly evolving into a more diversified content model and a better value to consumers. Congrats on some great numbers and best of luck for more increases in the future.

[Mark Moran]

Congratulations, it is great to hear some good news from the newspaper industry. We rely heavily on the LA Times as a great resource for our "Beyond the Headlines" section, and based on this news, we can look forward to relying on it for the foreseeable future.

Mark Moran
CEO
FindingDulcinea

[KC]

One thing I've noticed recently is that you've not broken your story links the way you used to. I gave up on blogging LATimes stories when that was happening. Now the stories are sticking around, and I'm blogging about LATimes stuff more. Others are likely doing the same.

[Jack Henry]

Imagine what would happen to your traffic if the LA Times was considered the true authority on entertainment news with the power to steer or correct the outsider culture's perception of what really happens in Hollywood. "What does the LA Times say about this?" would be a mantra around the globe. Right now you report the exact same information and point of view as news orgs outside of LA (Snead's blog is just recycled filler from other sources, she gets hits because of the headlines not the content.) You should offer the world the real deal, be the paper of record for the entertainment capital of the world.

[Paul Olivas]

I still dont think you should get rid of the newspaper, not a good idea. People still need it and read it and enjoy it.

[Ian Lamont]

Congratulations on the fantastic numbers. Besides Google and Digg, what are the other external sites and services that send a lot of traffic your way? How much traffic did they account for in July?

Ian Lamont
Managing Editor
The Industry Standard